Television commerce or t-commerce is conventionally viewed as a subset of interactive television and is generally defined as electronic commerce where the electronic commerce transactions occur over the medium of television, or similar devices. Although t-commerce is still in its early stages, it is projected to play a significant role in the growth and acceptance of interactive television.
T-commerce transactions may be conducted in a full screen television mode, or through an interactive program guide (“IPG”). Generally speaking, an IPG is an on-screen listing of television program information with interactive functions that enable users to navigate through, sort, select and schedule television programming for viewing and recording. An IPG may include different regions for displaying advertisements and other messages.
Alternatively, the t-commerce opportunity may be presented to a user outside of the IPG. For example, advertising or t-commerce opportunities may be presented to a user in connection with a currently broadcast television program or advertisement. The head end, or the service provider typically transmits a video or video image for each product being advertised. These transmitted images are typically large and take a lot of transmission bandwidth and local storage.
Therefore, there is a need for a television system and method that is capable of providing images for products offered on television in such way to improve the transmission bandwidth and local storage for the images.